After last week's NYT "Room for Debate" feature, ostensibly in answer to the question of why so many adults read YA fiction, Roger Sutton at the Horn Booktook umbrage at the panelists' only partial engagement with the question. In the end though, he makes his own position clear: "I don’t worry about adults reading YA novels. Read what you want."

On August 1st, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. Also, Franz Kafka went swimming. Moreover, the Metamorphosisauthor mentioned both events in his diary, writing simply and strangely that "Germany has declared war on Russia — went swimming in the afternoon." Was this odd phrasing intentional or a sign of the author's self-absorption? In an article for Open Letters Monthly, Robert Minto reads allthreevolumes of Reiner Stach's new biography.